Texas’s Rick Perry has been telephoning the Iowa crew who organized a draft-Chris-Christie mission earlier this presidential election cycle, with a goal of winning their financial support, as well as their political backing.

Perry, who declared his candidacy Aug. 13, has already telephoned ethanol entrepreneur Bruce Rastetter and West Des Moines business partners Gary Kirke and Mike Richards. He has made plans to speak with retired insurance executive Cameron Sutton.

The seven Republicans – the others are GOP activist Mikel Derby, real estate developer Denny Elwell, and former state Sen. Jim Kersten – have an eye on fiscal issues.

They traveled to New Jersey by private jet on May 31 to try to talk Christie, the state’s governor, into abandoning his disinterest in running for president in 2012. Christie isn’t as emphatic in his private conversations as he is in his public statements that he’s not interested in running, the Iowans have said.

Kirke hasn’t made a commitment to any candidate and doesn’t plan to until after Labor Day, a spokeswoman said today. Kirke worked on Ronald Reagan’s campaign and he helped raise money for the campaigns of Bob Dole, Phil Gramm and Rudy Giuliani.

Rastetter, too, was unswayed. “Not leaning one way or the other — just had a nice conversation,” he said.

Rastetter was top fundraiser to the past two GOP candidates for governor in Iowa, Jim Nussle and Terry Branstad. Branstad appointed him earlier this year to the board that oversees the state’s universities.